• Today's Word

Panacea

🔊 Listen to the word Panacea

pan-uh-SEE-uh

Definition

(noun) A solution or remedy for all difficulties or diseases; a universal cure.

Example

The new policy was touted as a panacea for the city’s housing crisis, but skeptics noted it didn’t address affordability at all.

Word Origin

From Latin panacea, borrowed from Greek panakeia, meaning “all-healing” — a compound of pan (all) + akos (cure or remedy). In Greek mythology, Panacea was the goddess of universal remedy, daughter of Asclepius (the god of medicine) and granddaughter of Apollo.

Fun Fact

For centuries, alchemists and physicians searched for a literal panacea — a single substance that could cure all human illness. “Theriac,” a compound mixture sometimes containing over 60 ingredients including viper flesh and opium, was sold across Europe and the Middle East for nearly 2,000 years as just such a universal cure. It wasn’t until germ theory in the 19th century that the idea of a single all-purpose remedy began to fall apart scientifically — though the word lives on whenever someone promises too much.